I've spent years exploring health, mental health, and science as a journalist based on the Left Coast. I covered west coast biotech and science for Bloomberg News and contributed to dozens of publications including Bloomberg Business Week, Mother Jones, Salon, Health magazine, Reader’s Digest, Parenting, and the Los Angeles Times. I’m interested in how and why the wealthiest country in the world has such an irrational healthcare system that develops brilliant new therapies while overtreating many and underserving even more. I'm also deeply interested in efforts to make our communities healthier by ensuring that everyone has access to the things that foster good health -- good food, safety and the chance to be physically, politically and socially active.

“Dear member of Congress,” begins the March 18 letter purportedly sent by various organizations across the country to U.S. legislators. The letter argues against a proposal to let the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary use the purchasing power of Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices on prescription drugs used by Medicare patients through the Part D program. The names of 353 organizations appear after the letter as signers.

There’s just one problem. Some of the groups listed didn’t sign the letter and are in fact opposed to its message. Healthcare for America Now (HCAN), an advocacy group that pushes for universal access to health care and insurance, noticed some unlikely signers on the list and randomly sampled some of the listed organizations. HCAN staffers identified five groups, including Occupy Baton Rouge and Doctors for America, which said they hadn’t been contacted or agreed to sign the letter.

“Occupy Baton Rouge is more likely to occupy Big Pharma than to occupy space on a letter to protect their profits,” HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome told me.

“We did not sign this letter and are shocked that anyone would use our name to support a completely opposite view,” said Alice Chen, executive director of Doctors for America, a national group of doctors and medical students. Her organization “strongly supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of millions of seniors,” she told me in an email.

The letter was written by RetireSafe, a lobbying group that says it represents 400,000 seniors and works to preserve their options and benefits and to “maintain a government that is limited in both size and scope.” Thair Philips, president and chief executive officer of RetireSafe, said a “simple miscommunication” was the cause of the five groups being incorrectly listed as signers.

Thair’s group contends that allowing negotiations over drug prices would weaken Medicare for seniors. The power to bargain over drug prices was expressly denied to federal health officials by the 2003 law creating the Part D drug benefit, during the Bush administration. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) does have the ability to negotiate with drugmakers over prescription drug prices. The result, according to a 2009 analysis by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, is that prices paid by the VA for the 10 most commonly used drugs are 48 percent lower than those paid by Medicare for Part D patients.

Health Care for America Now Executive Director Ethan Rome said his group believes the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association, PhRMA, was actually behind the RetireSafe letter. He derided it an “astro-turf” campaign that appear to be grass-roots but was orchestrated by industry.

“Astro-turf campaigns are common, but this one was unique, because they made up the astro and the turf,” Rome said.

PhRMA spokeswoman Jenni Brewer referred inquiries about the letter to RetireSafe but confirmed that the groups collaborate. “We partner with and support diverse stakeholders and organizations who share the same goals,” she said in an email.

The letter claims that lowering drug prices would increase costs in other healthcare sectors, that it would lead to restrictions on access to needed drugs, and that it might cause patients to not take vital medications.

“We question the wisdom of requiring the Secretary to negotiate drug prices in a program that works well, continues to be significantly under budget forecasts, and that seniors and disabled individuals know and trust to meet their needs,” the letter says.

Doctors for America’s Alice Chen takes a different view. “Letting HHS negotiate drug prices makes sense,” she told me. “If we allowed HHS to negotiate for better prescription drug prices, we would save billions of dollars. And we would protect Medicare’s future so seniors and future seniors can count on the health care they need.”

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